Dear Families, Students, and Staff,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication this term. Today marks the halfway point of the year and 12 months since I joined the team at Herdy. Thank you so much for welcoming me into the school community and trusting us to provide your children with a fantastic education.

Celebrating Progress

Over the past two weeks, we have been measuring student progress in reading since implementing our UFLI program. We have seen amazing growth in this short time, with all year groups achieving the expected growth on average. This is a remarkable achievement, especially considering this is a completely new approach for both staff and students. As the year progresses, we will be adding new elements to these lessons, such as the partnered reading introduced partway through this term.

Exciting Developments

Yesterday, I met with Jordan, the landscape architect from Inspiring Place, who will be designing and building our nature play facility at the front of the school. Next term, we will begin consulting with staff, students, and the community to gather input on what we would like this facility to include. We are very excited to get this project underway.

Looking Ahead

Have a safe and relaxing break, and we look forward to seeing you all again in Term 3.

Warm regards,

Tobin McColl, Principal

Students in years 3 to 6 have been participating in our annual Swimming and Water Safety Program for the past two weeks at Oceana.  It's great to see children growing in confidence on a daily basis and really enjoying their time in the pool.  Thank you to our parents for their support in getting their children swim-ready every day.

On Friday 28 June our LiL children and families enjoyed an end of term celebration at ZooDoo. We had so much fun patting the animals, hearing the lions raw and feeding the kangaroos and farm animals! We even got to see a joey peeking out from its mother's pouch! A special thankyou to Variety TAS for purchasing the tickets for this excursion, we had a fantastic time!

This term our Kindergarten students have been exploring dinosaurs. We started by asking questions about dinosaurs, such as "how do scientists know dinosaurs were real?", and "what happened to all the dinosaurs?"

We decided to create a museum to share all of our research. We worked alongside our buddies in 3/4/5L to learn about fossils, different types of dinosaurs, the habitats where they lived and herbivore and carnivore diets.

Thankyou to the families who were able to come along to our museum grand opening and support our students in sharing their learning.

Well done to all students who have been eagerly reading and recording the books they have read so far.  Remember, holiday reading counts too. The Premier’s Reading challenge is happening now .  To participate, kids are encouraged to set a personal goal to read a certain amount of books between June 17 and August 23 and record it on a log. 

The Premier’s Reading Challenge is a personal challenge – not a competition.   

It doesn’t matter what kids read, as long as they are reading.  They are free to choose books they want to read for the Challenge.  To help you get started be sure to check out the books recommended in the Challenge Booklists.  You could also visit your local library.

You can read books in a variety of formats including print, digital, audiobooks and graphic novels. For younger children, a book that is read to them counts toward their total.

Completing the Challenge is something to be proud of!

Let’s have some fun getting kids to read for fun!

Herdsmans Cove Primary would like to thank WOOLWORTHS BRIDGEWATER, who have been kindly donating grocery items that are slightly damaged or nearing their use by date to our school community.

We have set up an area in the foyer, giving families the opportunity to help themselves to a free bag of grocery items every Friday.

Please bring in your own grocery bag and help yourself.

We have a big basket of un-named plain clothes, including puffer jackets in our lost property basket.  Please feel free to visit the office to see if you can find a piece of your child's missing clothing.

Herdsmans Cove is proud to be supporting a fundraising event to support people and their families living with Type 1 Diabetes.

On Wednesday 23 July we will be having a "Jellybean Free Dress Day" where students can dress in their favourite jelly bean colour and bring along a gold coin donation.  There will also be a jelly bean competition, where students can guess the number of jelly beans in the jar for a gold coin donation as well.

Thank you to Hippy Brighton and Under One Rainbow for sponsoring this day.

Herdsmans Cove Primary School will be celebrating the upcoming Paris Olympic Games as a school, with classes running their own medal tally, a free dress day and some fun sporting activities.

We wish students a happy, safe and warm term 2 school holiday break.  We will see all students back at school on Monday 22 July for the start of Term 3.